**Date:** 1914
**Source:** Lenin Miscellany, vol. 27
**Pages:** 266-269

BRAUER ON THE GERMAN APPROXIMATELY "DEFEATISTS"

*Hochland*. Munich. No. 8, 1914/1915. May 1915.
Catholic, aristocratic organ of the Austrian-Munich clergy
(edited by Karl Muth)
Catholic [?]

Th. Brauer: "War and Socialism."

..."War means more than a mere episode in the development of socialism: it leads (at least in possibility) to a definite conclusion of this development" (176)...

...("Account" of Marx, Engels, Bebel...)

..."Theoretical 'slaughter' does not prevent 'opportunism' from continuing its merry life and gaining respect (179). In the measure that the masses gathering around the socialist banner grow (180), in a far stronger progression grows also their will directed toward the present, and this does not prevent them from directing their eyes also toward the contemporary state in their expectations"...

...Precisely in this (revolutionary) ideology, with which Bernstein struggled, — "precisely in this ideology does the European war play a great role as the beginning of social revolution" (180).

(Trade unions are growing wiser)

* In the manuscript, on the left margin at the top of the page, written across the text is the following note: "NB: 'Report of the Swiss Factory and Mining Inspectors on their official activity (NB||) in the years 1912 and 1913'. Aarau 1914 (265 pp. 3 marks.)". *Editor's note.*

[ 268 ]

...just before the war comes also a genuine rapprochement of trade union socialism with "bourgeois" social reform (181).

"The upheaval in German Social Democracy upon the outbreak of war occurred, viewed from a purely external standpoint, like a sudden sharp break. Still on the eve, the deliberations of the press contained admonitions, warnings, and invocations in the old agitational jargon. There are even such deliberations which, alluding to what allegedly occurred in France after 1870, ring out as praise of defeat (181). But then suddenly comes... a turn that cannot be more complete. The official declarations issued for this purpose are far from providing a justification. As everyone knows — and therefore need not be elaborated here — they can be refuted, following earlier official explanations, quite easily" (181).

...(Contact of socialist masses with the "full" reality of life)...

..."Sensible Socialists, especially from the camp of Revisionists" (182)... long ago pointed out the danger of such (old-socialist) education of the people—

...(celebration of patriotism)...

..."The Reformists could now finally hope to find a strong, firmly-grounded foundation for a new socialist and social-democratic program which they had so ardently desired" (183)...

..."If one wishes to designate in a word the practical success of revisionist activity, it would be something like this: that it shook the faith in Marxism among the leaders and in the upper stratum of practical activists, organizers, and that these, lacking sufficient replacement, made tactics their 'confession of faith'" (184).

and generally they (188) waited for the voices of those who would return from the trenches.